An amateur artist! I have a passion for history, be it Military, fashion or social history. I also love hiking, wild camping and the great outdoors. When it comes to entertainment my wife and I love watching period movies/ dramas, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, war movies etc. The creativity of film set art departments I find fascinating. All my hobbies are creative. I am what is called a ‘living historian’, which basically means I go back in time at weekends providing historical displays for different time periods at great houses around the UK whilst living in the old ways, always learning new skills. My wife and I both make all of our own clothing and uniforms for this. I used to paint military figurines when I was younger and have many unfinished projects still boxed up somewhere! My passion for art is almost always linked to history. So much of my historical research is taken from a moment in time captured by an artist and can tell you so much about the person and the time. I find myself so in awe of the old masters and really want to push myself to improve my classical oil painting techniques. Throughout my art education I have spent most of my time battling against tutors trying to push me, albeit gently, down a ‘modern art’ route, but it has never inspired me and it is only really recently that I have been able to begin to put learning classical painting skills into practice. Loving it so far!